BLURB:
Guns of the Dawn is a pacey, gripping fantasy of war and magic, from Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author, Adrian Tchaikovsky.

The first casualty of war is truth . . .

First, Denland's revolutionaries assassinated their king, launching a wave of bloodshed
after generations of peace. Next they clashed with Lascanne, their royalist neighbour,
pitching war-machines against warlocks in a fiercely fought conflict.

Genteel Emily Marshwic watched as the hostilities stole her family's young men. But
then came the call for yet more Lascanne soldiers in a ravaged kingdom with none
left to give. Emily must join the ranks of conscripted women and march toward the front lines.

With barely enough training to hold a musket, Emily braves the savage reality of warfare.
But she begins to doubt her country's cause, and those doubts become critical. For her
choices will determine her own future and that of two nations locked in battle."

It's 1843, and Grace
Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of
her employer and his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is
innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence,
Grace claims to have no memory of the murders.

An up-and-coming
expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness is engaged by a group
of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace. He listens
to her story while bringing her closer and closer to the day she cannot
remember. What will he find in attempting to unlock her memories?

11 December, 2017

Happy Monday friends!
Since it's THAT time of the year again, I decided to change Monday Travels a little.
So until Christmas, every Monday I will give you guys, a Christmas Song that I absolutely love!
Just a little something from me, so you could enjoy the Winter Magic!

BLURB:
Large chests are said to encompass all manner of hopes and dreams. Men covet them. Women envy them. But one fact holds true - everyone wants to get their hands on some big ones.

The same holds true for one intrepid adventurer - a strapping young lad by the name of Himmel. Armed with his grandfather’s trusty longsword and the dream of being the strongest, he sets out on the journey of a lifetime! It is sure to be a long and dangerous road, fraught with danger! And it all starts with a simple test - reach Level 5 in the dungeon called the ‘newbie zone’ and earn the right to become a full-fledged adventurer!

However, such things get hopelessly derailed when his adolescent mind beholds an exposed chest for the first time. A fateful meeting that would inevitably lead his life in a direction he never even dreamed of!

Set in Calcutta in the 1930s, The Midnight Palace begins on a dark night when an English lieutenant fights to save newborn twins Ben and Sheere from an unthinkable threat. Despite monsoon-force rains and terrible danger lurking around every street corner, the young lieutenant manages to get them to safety, but not without losing his own life. . . .

Years later, on the eve of Ben and Sheere’s sixteenth birthday, the mysterious threat reenters their lives. This time, it may be impossible to escape. With the help of their brave friends, the twins will have to take a stand against the terror that watches them in the shadows of the night—and face the most frightening creature in the history of the City of Palaces.

Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent.

Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of her problems, as she learns that she's stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself—and that now, her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even riskier than the first.

BLURB: In a desperate attempt to escape destruction decades earlier, humankind was forced underground, into the depths of the earth, creating a new society called the Tri-Realms.

After her parents and sister are abducted by the Enforcers, seventeen-year-old Adele, a member of the middle-class moon dwellers, is unjustly sentenced to life in prison for her parents' crimes of treason.

Against all odds, Adele must escape from the Pen and find her family, while being hunted by a deranged, killing machine named Rivet, who works for the President. She is helped by two other inmates, Tawni and Cole, each of whom have dark secrets that are better left undiscovered. Other than her friends, the only thing she has going for her is a wicked roundhouse kick and two fists that have been well-trained for combat by her father.

At the other end of the social spectrum is Tristan, the son of the President and a sun dweller. His mother is gone. He hates his father. Backed by only his servant and best friend, Roc, he leaves his lavish lifestyle in the Sun Realm, seeking to make something good out of his troubled life.

When a war breaks out within the Tri-Realms, Tristan is thrust into the middle of a conflict that seems to mysteriously follow Adele as she seeks to find her family and uncover her parents true past.

It’s wartime, and the Carver family decides to leave the capital where they live and move to a small coastal village where they’ve recently bought a home. But from the minute they cross the threshold, strange things begin to happen. In that mysterious house there still lurks the spirit of Jacob, the previous owners’ son, who died by drowning.

With the help of their new friend Roland, Max and Alicia Carver begin to explore the suspicious circumstances of that death and discover the existence of a mysterious being called The Prince of Mist—a diabolical character who has returned from the shadows to collect on a debt from the past. Soon the three friends find themselves caught up in an adventure of sunken ships and an enchanted stone garden, which will change their lives forever.

02 December, 2017

November has come to an end, and so has NaNoWriMo, here the occasion was marked by first snow. With it being over, I want to congratulate everyone with finishing it, trying it, or even merely starting it. Whether you wrote a page or a hundred, you’ve done well to try. And just because it’s over, doesn’t mean we have to stop, right?

An English translation of the original Lithuanian Teutonų BelaisvisThe
setting for this series of narratives is the Northern Crusades, a
fascinating and particularly brutal period within the generally bloody
history of the Crusades. Unlike the well documented and frequently
fictionalized crusades in the Mediterranean region, little attention has
been paid to the crusades in the Baltic region. They were initiated and
strongly supported by the Popes of that period and drew fighting men
from all of Europe. The original intent of the crusades was to
Christianize the Baltic peoples who at the beginning of the XII-th
century were still adamantly pagan. Over time, however, they degenerated
into straightforward genocidal campaigns to acquire lands and serfs.
Several orders of knightly monks participated in the prolonged war, of
these the most prominent was the Teutonic Order of Holy Mary of
Jerusalem. The members of this order were drawn from the noble or
knightly class and had to be of German birth. They succeeded in
completely exterminating the Prussian people, and expropriated not only
their land, but also their name. After over 200 years of bitter struggle
only the Lithuanians and Samogitians remained unconquered and pagan.
They accepted Christianity on their own terms at the beginning of the
XV-the century.

BLURB:
'Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death; -- the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine!'

After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille, the ageing Doctor Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There the lives of two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette. From the tranquil roads of London, they are drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained streets of Paris at the height of the Reign of Terror, and they soon fall under the lethal shadow of La Guillotine.

This edition uses the text as it appeared in its serial publication in 1859 to convey the full scope of Dickens's vision, and includes the original illustrations by H. K. Browne ('Phiz'). Richard Maxwell's introduction discusses the intricate interweaving of epic drama with personal tragedy.

Uhtred is an English
boy, born into the aristocracy of ninth-century Northumbria. Orphaned at
ten, he is captured and adopted by a Dane and taught the Viking ways.
Yet Uhtred's fate is indissolubly bound up with Alfred, King of Wessex,
who rules over the only English kingdom to survive the Danish assault.
The
struggle between the English and the Danes and the strife between
christianity and paganism is the background to Uhtred's growing up. He
is left uncertain of his loyalties but a slaughter in a winter dawn
propels him to the English side and he will become a man just as the
Danes launch their fiercest attack yet on Alfred's kingdom. Marriage
ties him further still to the West Saxon cause but when his wife and
child vanish in the chaos of the Danish invasion, Uhtred is driven to
face the greatest of the Viking chieftains in a battle beside the sea.
There, in the horror of the shield-wall, he discovers his true
allegiance.
The Last Kingdom, like most of Bernard Cornwell's
books, is firmly based on true history. It is the first novel of a
series that will tell the tale of Alfred the Great and his descendants
and of the enemies they faced, Viking warriors like Ivar the Boneless
and his feared brother, Ubba. Against their lives Bernard Cornwell has
woven a story of divided loyalties, reluctant love and desperate
heroism. In Uhtred, he has created one of his most interesting and
heroic characters and in The Last Kingdom one of his most powerful and
passionate novels.

BLURB:
An East Asian fantasy reimagining of The Evil Queen legend about one peasant girl's quest to become Empress--and the darkness she must unleash to achieve her destiny.

Eighteen-year-old Xifeng is beautiful. The stars say she is destined for greatness, that she is meant to be Empress of Feng Lu. But only if she embraces the darkness within her. Growing up as a peasant in a forgotten village on the edge of the map, Xifeng longs to fulfill the destiny promised to her by her cruel aunt, the witch Guma, who has read the cards and seen glimmers of Xifeng's majestic future. But is the price of the throne too high?

Because in order to achieve greatness, she must spurn the young man who loves her and exploit the callous magic that runs through her veins--sorcery fueled by eating the hearts of the recently killed. For the god who has sent her on this journey will not be satisfied until his power is absolute.

BLURB:
Stephen King returns to the characters and territory of one of his most popular novels ever, The Shining, in this instantly riveting novel about the now middle-aged Dan Torrance (the boy protagonist of The Shining) and the very special 12-year-old girl he must save from a tribe of murderous paranormals.

On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless - mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky 12-year-old Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the "steam" that children with the "shining" produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father's legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant "shining" power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes "Doctor Sleep."

Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan's own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra's soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of hyper-devoted fans of The Shining and wildly satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon.

BLURB:
On the first day of May, 100 teenage boys meet for a race known as "The Long Walk." If you break the rules, you get three warnings. If you exceed your limit, what happens is absolutely terrifying.

BLURB:
Equal parts Dexter and 50 Shades, this is the eagerly awaited new novel from A. R. Torre, author of the award winning erotic thriller, The Girl in 6E.

The rules are the same. I can't open the door. I can't leave. I can't kill anyone.

The only difference is, I don't set the rules anymore. Guards in grey uniforms do. It is everything I never wanted and everything I always deserved. I write to you now, from a prison cell. My home for the next twenty to thirty years.

BLURB:
He looks at her, concerned. “How do you feel?” She wants to say, Terrified. Instead, she says, with a faint smile, “Glad to be home.”

Karen and Tom Krupp are happy—they’ve got a lovely home in upstate New York, they’re practically newlyweds, and they have no kids to interrupt their comfortable life together. But one day, Tom returns home to find Karen has vanished—her car’s gone and it seems she left in a rush. She even left her purse—complete with phone and ID—behind.

There's a knock on the door—the police are there to take Tom to the hospital where his wife has been admitted. She had a car accident, and lost control as she sped through the worst part of town.

The accident has left Karen with a concussion and a few scrapes. Still, she’s mostly okay—except that she can’t remember what she was doing or where she was when she crashed. The cops think her memory loss is highly convenient, and they suspect she was up to no good.

Karen returns home with Tom, determined to heal and move on with her life. Then she realizes something’s been moved. Something’s not quite right. Someone’s been in her house. And the police won't stop asking questions.

Because in this house, everyone’s a stranger. Everyone has something they’d rather keep hidden. Something they might even kill to keep quiet.

To the children, the
town was their whole world. To the adults, knowing better, Derry, Maine
was just their home town: familiar, well-ordered for the most part. A
good place to live.

It was the children who saw - and felt - what
made Derry so horribly different. In the storm drains, in the sewers,
IT lurked, taking on the shape of every nightmare, each one's deepest
dread. Sometimes IT reached up, seizing, tearing, killing . . .

The adults, knowing better, knew nothing.

Time
passed and the children grew up, moved away. The horror of IT was
deep-buried, wrapped in forgetfulness. Until they were called back, once
more to confront IT as IT stirred and coiled in the sullen depths of
their memories, reaching up again to make their past nightmares a
terrible present reality.

BLURB:After the grisly murder
of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the
ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of
their own.

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal
boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling
graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian
who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead. There
are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy. But if Bod leaves
the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack—who has
already killed Bod's family...

Beloved master storyteller
Neil Gaiman returns with a luminous new novel for the audience that
embraced his New York Times bestselling modern classic Coraline. Magical, terrifying, and filled with breathtaking adventures, The Graveyard Book is sure to enthrall readers of all ages.

BLURB:
Hopeless romantic Isla has had a crush on introspective cartoonist Josh since their first year at the School of America in Paris. And after a chance encounter in Manhattan over the summer, romance might be closer than Isla imagined. But as they begin their senior year back in France, Isla and Josh are forced to confront the challenges every young couple must face, including family drama, uncertainty about their college futures, and the very real possibility of being apart.

Featuring cameos from fan-favorites Anna, Étienne, Lola, and Cricket, this sweet and sexy story of true love—set against the stunning backdrops of New York City, Paris, and Barcelona—is a swoonworthy conclusion to Stephanie Perkins’s beloved series.

BLURB:
Bram Stoker's "Dracula" told only part of the story. "Sherlock Holmes and the Plague of Dracula" recounts the Great Detective's search for Jonathan Harker, his confrontation with the Count, the truth behind the Great Hiatus, and Dracula's terrible legacy.

After Mina Murray asks Sherlock Holmes to locate her fiancee, Holmes and Watson travel to a land far eerier than the moors they had known when pursuing the Hound of the Baskervilles. The confrontation with Count Dracula threatens Holmes' health, his sanity, and his life. Will Holmes survive his battle with Count Dracula?

In Coraline's family's new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close.

The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own.

Only it's different.

At first, things seem marvelous in the other flat. The food is better. The toy box is filled with wind-up angels that flutter around the bedroom, books whose pictures writhe and crawl and shimmer, little dinosaur skulls that chatter their teeth. But there's another mother, and another father, and they want Coraline to stay with them and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go.

Other children are trapped there as well, lost souls behind the mirrors. Coraline is their only hope of rescue. She will have to fight with all her wits and all the tools she can find if she is to save the lost children, her ordinary life, and herself.

Critically acclaimed and award-winning author Neil Gaiman will delight readers with his first novel for all ages.

Jane has lived a mostly ordinary life, raised by her recently deceased aunt Magnolia, whom she counted on to turn life into an adventure. Without Aunt Magnolia, Jane is directionless. Then an old acquaintance, the glamorous and capricious Kiran Thrash, blows back into Jane’s life and invites her to a gala at the Thrashes’ extravagant island mansion called Tu Reviens. Jane remembers her aunt telling her: “If anyone ever invites you to Tu Reviens, promise me that you’ll go.”

What Jane doesn’t know is that at Tu Reviens her story will change; the house will offer her five choices that could ultimately determine the course of her untethered life. But every choice comes with a price. She might fall in love, she might lose her life, she might come face-to-face with herself. At Tu Reviens, anything is possible.

BLURB:
Budding designer Lola Nolan doesn't believe in fashion... she believes in costume. The more expressive the outfit – the more sparkly, more wild – the better. And life is pretty close to perfect for Lola, especially with her hot rocker boyfriend.

That is, until the Bell twins, Calliope and Cricket return to the neighbourhood and unearth a past of hurt that Lola thought was long buried. So when talented inventor Cricket steps out from his twin sister's shadow and back into Lola's life, she must finally face up to a lifetime of feelings for the boy next door. Could the boy from Lola's past be the love of her future?

Fall in love with the international bestseller from queen of young adult fiction, Stephanie Perkins.

BLURB:
Scream meets YA in this hotly-anticipated new novel from the bestselling author of Anna and the French Kiss.

One-by-one, the students of Osborne High are dying in a series of gruesome murders, each with increasing and grotesque flair. As the terror grows closer and the hunt intensifies for the killer, the dark secrets among them must finally be confronted.

International bestselling author Stephanie Perkins returns with a fresh take on the classic teen slasher story that’s fun, quick-witted, and completely impossible to put down.

01 November, 2017

NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month, held during the month of November. The goal is to write a 50.000 word count novel in a single month, challenge yourself, and possibly – make that breaking step towards your dreams. Or just a chance to release all that creativity so many of us carry around daily. As Victoria Schwab, one of my all-time most favorite authors, said many times: “writing happens everywhere, for writing happens in your head. The rest is just transcribing.”